Trying to be a better parent, Paul McCartney swears off smoking dope

Blamed with the Beatles throughout the 1960-70s for popularizing recreational drugs, the 69-year-old musician gives up marijuana for 8-year-old daughter Beatrice.

Here come old flattop, he come grooving up slowlyHe got joo-joo eyeball, he one holy rollerHe got hair down to his kneeGot to be a joker he just do what he pleaseHe wear no shoeshine, he got toe-jam footballHe got monkey finger, he shoot coca-colaHe say “I know you, you know me”One thing I can tell you is you got to be freeCome together right now over me

The song was reportedly inspired by LSD-proponent Timothy Leary’s campaign for governor of California against Ronald Reagan, which abruptly ended when Leary was sent to prison for drug possession.

McCartney has previously confessed to using cocaine and heroin. He and the other Beatles reportedly tried marijuana for the first time in

1964, when they met Bob Dylan at a New York Hotel. Dylan had misunderstood the line “I can’t hide” in the Beatles’ song “I Want to Hold Your Hand” as “I get high,” and assumed they were already marijuana users.

The band admitted to being stoned throughout most of the filming of the movie Help! in 1965. McCartney has told interviewers that the songs “Got To Get You Into My Life” and “Fixing A Hole” were “odes to pot.” In 1967, all four members of the group signed a petition to legalize marijuana.

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They were reportedly introduced to LSD by George Harrison’s dentist in late 1965. Ringo Starr said years later that “whenever we overdid our intake, the music we made was absolutely [expletive.]”

In the summer of 1967, after taking up Hindu-based Transcendental Meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the band publicly renounced all drug use, however resumed using alcohol and drugs after parting ways with him.

In 1968-9, John Lennon and Yoko Ono fought herion addictions that lasted for more than a year. The two were arrested for hashish possession in 1968, as was Harrison in 1969.

The Beatles, circa 1965

But it was McCartney has had the most run-ins with police — busted for marijuana in 1972, 1980, 1981 and 1984. He spent nine days in jail in Japan for trying to bring marijuana into the country and later had